Colin Montgomerie goes into his 50th major championship today determined to avoid falls outside his hotel room and with three vital ingredients appearing to be in place - good form, good memories and good mood.

Second to Ian Poulter in the Nordic Open in Denmark on Sunday, Montgomerie is hoping that his long wait for a major - he played his first back in 1990 - can end on the Oak Hill course in Rochester, New York, where he helped Europe win the Ryder Cup eight years ago.

''It's always nice to come back to a course you've done well on,'' said the 40-year-old Scot, recovered now from the wrist injury, suffered in a breakfast-time trip at his hotel, which forced him to pull out of last month's Open on only the eighth hole.

''As soon as I heard Oak Hill had been chosen for this I was looking forward to it. They've lengthened it since and with all the rough it's a tight examination.''

But that has always been the way Montgomerie has liked it and although it is now also eight years since he lost to Steve Elkington in a play-off for this very title and four since he last had a top-ten finish in any major, this could be as good a chance as any he is likely to get in the future.

Ryder Cup captain Bernhard Langer sees it that way too.

''I would not be surprised at all to see him in contention here,'' said Langer, who was Montgomerie's partner at The Belfry and saw there how big a part good humour can play.

''Colin was very relaxed all week last September and that's key for anybody. You play your best golf when you're able to be relaxed and yet totally focused at the same time. He was."

Langer does not believe that turning 40 makes Montgomerie any less of a threat now to join a sequence of first-time majors that currently stands at four - Rich Beem, Mike Weir, Jim Furyk and, most recently at the Open of course, little-known Ben Curtis.